On Tuesday, August 11, 1863 after two days of reflection President Jefferson Davis responded to Robert E. Lee’s offer to resign, refusing to accept the general’s resignation. Davis noted that “our country could not bear to lose you” and admitted, “To ask me to substitute you by someone in my judgment more fit to command….is to demand of me an impossibility.”
Davis encouraged Lee “to take all possible care of yourself” and asked God’s blessings so that “the Lord will preserve you for the important duties devolved upon you in the struggle of our suffering country for the independence which we have engaged in war to maintain.”
After this and for as long as there would be an Army of Northern Virginia, there would never again be talk about Lee resigning.